To reduce China's polluting emissions was a daunting task and the immediate outlook was not very good, said a senior environment official here Thursday.

Sulfur dioxide emissions had increased by 1.2 percent year on year in the first quarter, said Zhang Lijun, vice minister of environment, at a press conference.

"The situation is not very good," he said.

Output of energy-consuming industrial products has increased quite fast this year, which is one of the reasons causing the increase, he said.

He also attributed the emissions increase to the severe drought in southwest China early this year, slow development of some projects to cut pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as weakening efforts of some local governments and enterprises.

Major problems exist, such as relatively heavy pollution of surface water across China, pollution of coast waters, reoccurring acid rain in some regions, traffic noise pollution at night and a worsening environmental situation in rural areas, he said.

The Ministry of Environment has introduced some measures to cope with the new problems, including releasing a blacklist of regions and enterprises not performing well in curbing polluting emissions, he said.

But still progress has been made in curbing pollution, he said.

China has set a target to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and chemical oxygen demand (COD), two main indicators of air and water pollution, by 10 percent from 2006 to 2010.

The country's COD and sulfur dioxide emissions fell 9.66 percent and 13.14 percent last year compared to those in 2005, respectively.

The average sulfur dioxide concentration in the air over Chinese cities stood at 0.035 milligram per cubic meter last year, a reduction of 16.7 percent from 2005 and had not changed since 2008, Zhang said.

In addition, the water quality showed an improvement last year as the Permanganate Index in sampled sections of surface water, a method to monitor water pollution by oxidizing organic and inorganic matter, dropped 10.5 percent from 2008 and 29.5 percent from 2005, Zhang said.

Last year, the country's daily capacity of waste water treatment increased by 13.3 million tonnes. Coal-fueled generators, with a total capacity of 102 million kwh, were equipped with desulfation facilities.

Zhang said China would encourage and support people from all walks of life and non-governmental organizations to take part in environmental protection as long as they did so in line with the law.

Public monitoring of pollution and advice from non-governmental organizations have helped the authorities a lot, he added.